Midnight on August 1, 2019, was the deadline for letters of inquiry for the 24th round of competitive grants from the Mockingbird Foundation. Typical of past rounds, more than 1,100 inquiries were submitted, evidence of the widespread need for funding in music education. Schools, camps, community centers, hospitals, churches, prisons, tribes, and more are struggling to bring music to children, and we hear from many hundreds of new ones every year. Only a fraction will be fundable, not because of faults in the programs or proposals, but because the need is so overwhelming.

Foundation volunteers have immediately begun a three-stage, five-month process to select from among those inquiries. A smaller subset will be invited to submit full proposals this fall, and grants will be announced by or during January. How many inquiries are ultimately funded is affected most significantly by donations. Mockingbird is graciously fortunate to have the direct financial support of hundreds of Phish fans worldwide – but we are also aware that there are millions of Phish fans, and supporters of music education, most of whom simply don’t know that we exist, what we do, and who we are. We thus invite and encourage you to volunteer in a simple but incredibly powerful way: Tell someone else about Mockingbird, whether a Phish fan or other music fan, perhaps even a musician. To wit…

The Mockingbird Foundation is an all-volunteer, fan-founded and -managed 501c3 supporting music education for children. It is the leading provider of historical information about Phish and its music, having cultivated intellectual property through phish.net since 1994. A leading grantmaker in music education for children, the Foundation has now made 413 grants in all 50 states, totaling more than $1.4M. Funds for grants are generated through donations from a loyal base of fans, as well as through books, recordings, artwork, merchandise, and special events. The Foundation has been operated entirely by volunteer fans of the band, without any salaries or paid staff, since its inception in 1996.